Hi this is Vanessa joy here with
AdoramaTV and we're talking about six
things that your photography website
must have...
Number 1... I want to be clear
about real estate on your website,
the top right corner of your website that's
like the good real estate...
that's where everybody's eye just goes to.
So some kind of call to action...
should be there - something like contact
us or here's where you get your free quote,
or free download or whatever it is...
I think if you look at my website it says
check your date...
at least right now but we're
going to rebrand..
so make sure that upper
right hand corner that has your call to action.
Number 2 is ...
you have to talk about what the heck you
do... a really good book about this is a
story brand by Donald Miller... and he talks about
creating a brand message, which is just
you communicating to whoever's on your
website, about what it is that you do...
but you have to do it really simply..
and the way that you think about it is that
you want to be able to repeat your brand
message like a Neanderthal...
so think of it this way...
I'm a wedding photographer I
need a Neanderthal to be able to look at
it and go oh... she shoots weddings... she
take wedding photos...
so you need a super clear brand message
Number 3.. you want to have an About
section but don't make it this long...
blabbery novel... I mean yes..
sometimes clients like to read
that, but today most people just want
bullet points, so make your About section
bullet points about you...
things that seem relevant...
go back to the branding videos
about you know what you should put in
the about Me section to be relevant
and all of that.
Number 4 is we're going to call Mark
Wallace, and Mark Wallace is going to
talk to us about what he thinks that
your photography website.
Let's call real quick while I stand in
the mud ...
Hey Mark... tell me about photography
websites... so there are a few places you
can go to build a website
Squarespace, or top of my head Live
Books and then WordPress so if you're a little
bit tech savvy and you want to own the
look and feel, and be able to change it
anytime you want... you want to put your
good stuff.. your best stuff in your
portfolio... not all your stuff and mix it
up so people... when they look at your
portfolio... they understand that you have
a wide variety of experience that you've
worked with a lot of different people,
because nothing shouts amateur like one
model posted in different poses over and
over and over again.
So Instagram is a good place to build
your portfolio but I don't think it
necessarily replaces an actual photo
website... the reason for that
is on Instagram you can't easily put
contact information information about
yourself... it's just so limited just in
that little couple sentences in your portfolio.
You can't really customize it,
you can't add a blog posting videos
longer than a minute right now,
that's not something you can do,
so there's just a lot of things that you
probably want to do on your own website
that you can't do on Instagram...
So use Instagram to feed
people to your normal website, and vice
versa - keep people engaged but those two things
should work as a team..
so one is not necessarily mutually
exclusive over the other..
Love it.. thank you so much.
I know you are a busy guy traveling all around
the world on your motorcycle so this
has been great...
Thank you so much...
all right moving on...
Number 5...
you want to make it easy to contact you.
So have a contact button on every page,
top right - because that is your most
valued Real Estate's...
where people kind of automatically go if
you have a contact form on your website,
give them the option of just emailing you because
maybe they like that better calling you...
because maybe they like that better...
and filling out a contact form...
and if you do a contact form...
make it very easy to fill out.
Don't ask too many questions -
you need the barrier of entry to be as low
as possible.. to get them to contact you.
Some of them will see you long form,
too many things to fill out on the
contact form, and they just won't contact
you. So you don't want that.
The last thing we have to talk about are the
images on your website.
I know we talked about this before, in one of the previous
videos, I want to really stress this....
your portfolio.... you should have a couple of
different galleries...
you know if you do different styles of
photography, or if you're just an event
photographer... maybe you break up like
engagement sessions detail photos,
and you know wedding moments of the
couple.. for gosh sakes you
probably need to, and I need to, cut down
the number of images by half. No one's
looking through them all...
and you want to have these 10 to 15 hero
images that you know they're gonna see.
So that you end up creating a brand
around it, and they recognize those
images really, really important...
that they recognize your photography.
I hope that you have been
having fun...
we are almost done with this series here
on AdoramaTV, tell me in the
comments some of the things that you
think a website needs...
and whether of not you have it on your website/
I am Vanessa Joy and I will see
you guys next time here on Adorama TV.
Thanks for joining me on this 10-week
marketing course here on AdoramaTV.
Make sure you subscribe..
hit the bell, so you don't miss a thing.
Don't forget to leave comments,
tell me how these things are working for you, or
aren't working for you..
and I will do my best to answer them, give
you new suggestions, and really follow
along this entire course.
So leave a comment hold
the hate cuz very frankly you're
somebody that I don't know and you're
taking shots at me like it's Patron,
Don't want to mess with your self-expression..
but I learned a lesson that's stressing
and obsessing about somebody else is no fun!